Reflections, commentaries, critiques and ideas from 40 years experience in the fields of Community Development, Community Education and Social Justice. Useful tools and techniques that I have learnt also added occassionally.

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The name of this blog, Rainbow Juice, is intentional.The rainbow signifies unity from diversity. It is holistic. The arch suggests the idea of looking at the over-arching concepts: the big picture. To create a rainbow requires air, fire (the sun) and water (raindrops) and us to see it from the earth.Juice suggests an extract; hence rainbow juice is extracting the elements from the rainbow, translating them and making them accessible to us. Juice also refreshes us and here it symbolises our nutritional quest for understanding, compassion and enlightenment.

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Compassion: Innate Or Not?

In last week’s blog I suggested that gratitude has an ally – compassion. In
an earlier blog I contended that compassion is one (of three) essential values
for a community development worker.

A number of social change mechanisms (notably Nonviolent Communication)
assume, when no violence is present in our hearts, that compassion is a natural
state. This assumption is challenged often by many (especially economists) who
contend that our base nature is competitive, nasty, and self-serving. Which is
it? Are we naturally compassionate, or are we naturally selfish?

Before proceeding, it is worth defining what compassion is. With the work
passion being held within it, there is a temptation to think that
compassion is about acting with a strong or intense desire, ie. with passion.
Passion has indeed come to mean a strong, intense desire, but the root of the
word is a little different. Passion derives from the Latin word pati
meaning to suffer. When the Latin word com (meaning
together) is added we discover that compassion means “to suffer
together.” From this shared suffering we act to alleviate that suffering.

Recognising the pain and suffering of another human being is, in part, one of
the evolutionary instincts that has enabled humans to survive and flourish in
the world. Far from the Social Darwinian assertion of the “survival of the
fittest” espoused by apologists for neoliberalism and military
interventions, Darwin actually claimed that

“… communities which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic
members would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of
offspring.”1

Research over the past few decades strongly suggests that our brains are
wired for compassion. Dacher Keltner asserts that compassion is

“… an innate human response embedded into the folds of our
brain.”2

Psychology, almost since it’s inception tended to focus on the “negative”
aspects of the brain. The more “positive” aspects of our thoughts, emotions and
feelings (e.g. happiness, empathy, gratitude, and compassion) have only more
recently received attention from the psychology or neurosciences fields. Dacher
Keltner is one such psychologist who studies these “positive” aspects. In his
paper, The Compassionate Instinct, Keltner notes that

“Recent neuroscience studies suggest that positive emotions are less
heritable – that is, less determined by our DNA – than negative emotions. Other
studies indicate that the brain structures involved in positive emotions like
compassion are more ‘plastic’ – subject to changes brought about by
environmental input.”

This is important, because it notes that compassion is something that we can
cultivate, something that we can enhance.

Hence, compassion is something that we evolved, and by doing so, enabled us
to evolve. Without compassion, we human beings, may not be here at all.

But What Of Those Who Are Not Compassionate?
Debates about compassion can lead us into the age-old argument about good and
evil. But what of those like Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, or Pol Pot ask those who
dispute the innateness of compassion. They showed no sense of compassion.

How could we describe such examples? The term “psychopath” comes to mind.
Perhaps, as Charles Eisenstein, notes “psychopath becomes the
scientifically sanctioned term for wicked person.” Psychopathy has the
advantage of having been studied longer than have many of the “positive” aspects
of the brain mentioned above.

Some recent research3 on psychopaths, whilst acknowledging that
psychopaths often do not act in a compassionate manner, notes that psychopaths
do have “empathy” (closely related to compassion) but that the switch in their
brain is set to the “off” position. (For most people “on” is the default
position for the compassion switch in the brain.) However, it is possible for
psychopaths to have this switched to “on.”

This research suggests that the notion that there are some who are not
capable of showing compassion, and are out-and-out evil doers, is a baseless
assumption.

Innate Or Not?

Innate or not, the research suggests strongly that compassion can be
enhanced, developed, cultivated. For some, it seems, compassion may possibly
even be “switched on.” If, as Keltner attests, compassion is one of the aspects
of the brain that is highly plastic, then cultivating it is indeed possible and
highly desirable.

Aside from the research about the evolutionary benefits of compassion there
has been considerable research into how compassion enhances our well-being.
Studies have linked compassion to greater happiness, lower levels of depression
and anxiety, lower cellular inflammation (linked to cancer), and greater
self-esteem. One study suggested that compassion increases our sense of
connection with others and hence leads to a 50% increased chance of
longevity.

Innate or not, it certainly seems advisable to cultivate our compassion.
Keltner advises forms of meditation, derived mainly from Buddhist practices.
The exact form seems to be irrelevant, the meditation itself is what is
important.

Buddhism does seem to be a useful source to tap into, as compassion is
strongly emphasised in that tradition. One of the timeless maxims of Buddhism
is the following:

“For the bird of enlightenment to fly, it must have two wings: the wing
of wisdom and the wing of compassion.”

Noting the connection to our individual well-being, the Dalai Lama counsels
that

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be
happy, practice compassion.”

In our current world compassion is of greater need than perhaps it ever has
been. In our community development work, or our social justice advocacy it is
our compassion that will have the greatest benefit. Compassion is also the
greatest gift that we can help bring about within the communities or society in
which we work.

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About Me

I have almost 40 years experience working (paid and unpaid, government and non-government) in community development/education and social justice fields. I have continued to keep myself abreast of philosophies and theories in these and related fields. This blogsite will offer ideas, thoughts, reflections on these fields as well as giving some tools and techniques. I don't pretend that these will be original but I do hope that they will be able to translate some of these diverse ideas into coherent forms accessible to workers in the areas.